Who’s Tracking These Deer and Why Are They Doing It?

Tracking devices and radio telemetry? Just what or who is keeping up with deer by using all this high-tech gadgetry and why would they be doing that?

Students in an Outdoor Adventures course at Blaine High School in Minnesota are tracking animals with radio telemetry devices. They’ve been following squirrels and raccoons so far, but have advanced to studying white-tailed deer as part of a big project.

Cool!

The students are working with the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. They’re going to follow a deer, to which they’ve attached a GPS telemetry collar, for up to three years. The tracking collar will reveal the deer’s location between six and 24 times a day. The students will be able to keep up with the deer during multiple seasons, including hunting season.

Cost for the project is $1,500, which was split evenly by the deer hunters association’s North Suburban Chapter and its State Habitat Committee.

I’ll give these students and the MDHA a big thumb’s up for this project and coordinated effort. In a time when many schools immediately say “NO!” and even have idiotic zero-tolerance policies that hurt kids playing cops ‘n robbers or cowboys ‘n indians on the playground, it’s good to see one school and students making a positive step towards outdoors education.

— Alan Clemons

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